


Hell and High Water

by JensenAckles13



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Depression, Destiel - Freeform, Gen, M/M, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JensenAckles13/pseuds/JensenAckles13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester hadn't shed a tear or smiled a real smile in seven years when he lost his mother in a tragic accident. When he meets Castiel, AKA other depressed kid, they go down a long, twisting road, learning an entirely new meaning of friendship, love, and trust. It's a wild ride; will Dean make it all the way to the end?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Preface

Dean smiled widely, rubbing the flour off his nose. His mother chuckled, setting down the pie she was about to put in the oven and coming over, kneeling in front of him and using a towel to clean off the rest of his face and hands.

“Be more careful, dear. You’ve got flour everywhere!” she exclaimed with a grin.

Dean looked down at his powdered clothing and shrugged.

“It’s okay! Now everyone’ll know I was helping you!” he replied.

“That is very true,” his mother said, her smile softening.

It was a beautiful day- the sun was shining brightly through the window above the sink, casting a soft glow around the kitchen. Bees buzzed around, taking their time in the new spring air, hovering above bright orange flowers and deep green leaves.  
Dean turned as their dog, Marvin, came crashing in the kitchen, tongue lolling out of his mouth. The golden retriever slid to a stop, barking playfully, and he dropped to his knees, petting behind the puppy’s floppy ears. He giggled as Marvin started licking his face, and he scrunched his eyes shut.

“What other kind of pie was it that you wanted, dear? Your tenth birthday is a pretty big one. Double the amount of pie for the double digits,” his mother said.

“Really?!” Dean exclaimed, turning wide green eyes up to his mother. His mother smiled; big, warm. 

“Of course!” she replied before she got back to work kneading the dough.

“Sweet! How ‘bout...cherry!” he said, releasing Marvin and standing. The pup whined and pawed at Dean’s leg, before letting out a bark. Dean looked back down at him, and Marvin tilted his head to the side, ears perking up, tail wagging furiously.

“Cherry would be great, Fey,” his mother said as she rolled out the pie crust and began fitting it into the pan. Dean smiled widely.

“Awesome!” he exclaimed, standing on his toes next to the counter.

“Can you turn the oven off?”

“Why? Don’t we still need it?” he asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

“Yes, but we don’t need it right now, dear, so we shouldn’t have it on now- it wastes power,” she replied distractedly.

“Oh.”

He never turned the oven off. 

*

They spent the rest of the day baking and playing out in the yard with Marvin.

When it grew dark, they came inside. His mother had him take a shower, telling him he needed one because he spent all day cooking and playing outside, before she tucked him into bed.

“Goodnight, Fey. I love you, darling,” his mother said, leaning down to kiss his forehead.

“G’night, ma,” he said, snuggling into the blankets. “Love you too!” His mother smiled before turning towards the door, her smile widening as his father walked in, rubbing his eyes.

“Late shift?” she asked, brow furrowing a bit.

“Yeah, sorry, sweetheart; it was a tough day. We had to put out three fires today. Todd and I switched nights- he’ll have his off tomorrow,” his father replied before kissing his mother. Dean scrunched his nose and his father grinned over at him.  
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, coming over and kneeling in front of Dean’s bed, ruffling his hair. “You and mom have fun today?”

“Yeah!” And Dean proceeded to tell him everything they’d done from the moment he woke up to the moment he got into bed.

“Sounds fun, Dean.” His father kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, son,” he said, before standing and heading to the door.

“Goodnight, daddy!” he called. His father smiled once more before closing the door, leaving it open a bit.

Dean laid in bed, attempting sleep, the clock reading 12: 16 a.m., when he smelled it. It smelled an awful lot like when they’d accidently burnt the pizza. Curiously, he crawled out of bed and padded down the hall, heading towards the kitchen. Maybe dad was making pizza again. Maybe mom was cleaning- she did that a lot at night- and got hungry so decided to cook something. As he got down the stairs, he felt strangely warm. It was really hot. He saw a strange orange glow from the kitchen door. He pushed it open and let out a shriek, jumping back. Flames had consumed the entire kitchen and were working their way up the wall. Through the flames, on the floor, he was able to make out a single figure.

“Mom!” he screamed. His father came rushing down a moment later, the sleep leaving his eyes instantly.

“Dean!” his father cried, wrapping his arms around Dean and holding him to his chest, before he ran out the door.

“Stay here, Dean,” his dad said sternly before running back in. Dean’s eyes were wide, full of tears. His hands trembled and he clutched them to his chest. He blinked rapidly and scooted away from his house. The flames were nearly to the windows upstairs now; Dean could see them reflected in his window as tears trailed down his cheeks, blurring the sight before him. His home was on fire. What about mom! What about Marvin!  
The puppy ran out the open front door then, appearing through the haze of smoke. Dean dropped to his knees, holding the pup close. Marvin nuzzled his head into Dean’s neck.  
His dad come running back out then, a sad look in his eyes. Mom wasn’t with him.

“D-dad?” he asked through his tears. “W-where’s mama?”

“Gone, Dean,” his father said softly. “Gone.”

Dean let out a cry, clutching Marvin closer. The pup whined, as if he knew that someone was missing. His father knelt beside him, tears in his brown eyes, and wrapped his arms around Dean. Dean sobbed into his shoulder, his fingers still clutched in Marvin’s soft fur.

“I-is she in Heaven now, daddy? Is she with God?” he asked, sniffling. His dad let out something that sounded like a sob.

“Yes, Dean, she’s with God now,” his father replied, hugging him even tighter.

In the distance, sirens roared. Red and blue lights flashed as they arrived outside the Colt’s house much too late.   
His father was whisked away to talk to the police officers and Dean stayed sitting in the grass of the neighbor’s lawn, the light of the dying flames reflecting in Marvin’s sad brown eyes. Dean held Marvin close to his chest, crying into his soft fur.

For once, the pup was quiet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Hell and High Water**

     I closed my eyes, taking a long, slow breath through my mouth. Everything hurt. My father had been extremely angry tonight, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was work. Maybe I didn’t get home on time. It was probably my fault anyway. I probably deserved what it is I got. After all, pain is a close second to fear, and I know he wants me to be just as scared of him as I am hurt by him. I gingerly pulled myself up from the shattered remnants of the mirror, wincing at the pull of glass buried in my hands from where I’d tried to stop myself from hitting it so hard. I looked at myself in the cracked remains that were still attached to the wall; all I saw was a distorted image of who I used to be. And that hurt so much worse than broken glass and empty whiskey bottles ever could. God, if only mom could see me now. She’d be so god damn disappointed. She’d probably disown me. Kick me to the streets. Any normal mother would. I was a disgrace. I could barely maintain my B average. I couldn’t play any instrument worth a damn. I couldn’t finish my copy of _The Odyssey_ before Christmas break, which was in three and a half weeks. I just couldn’t do anything right. I was the kid who sat quietly in the back of the class hoping no one would notice me. I didn’t raise my hand in class and I sure as hell didn’t talk to anyone. What parent would want _me_ as their kid?

I started cleaning up the glass, worried dad would get mad if I didn’t have it done by the time he woke up from his drinking binge. It stung my already tender hands but I couldn’t really bring myself to care. Just more scars to add to the too long list. Not all of them were from dad, I’ll admit that; some I’d given myself, but the cool burn of the steel blade against my wrist helped me focus on things other than school and dad and how big of a fuck up I am and how disappointed mom would be. I shook my head and threw all the glass in the trash can, making sure to pick up even the tiniest shards.

I made my way slowly up to the bathroom, washing the blood off my face and hands, examining the boot shaped bruises over my ribs. Nothing was broken, I didn’t think. Except maybe my heart. But that was okay. I deserved it. I left that oven on. I deserved whatever hell rained down on me. I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes and quickly blinked them away. I hadn’t cried since I was ten. That wasn’t going to change now. Crying was a weakness. It meant I was too weak to deal with the consequences I just so happened to bring onto myself. Maybe I _was_ too weak. It wouldn’t really be a surprise.  


Okay, enough of this. I needed to stop thinking. That was it. Sounded simple. I wish things _could_ be as simple as they sounded. But then, Fate never really is fair, is she? Wow, that makes me sound religious. But then...I could believe in Fate and not be religious, couldn’t I? Before that night, I had been a strong Christian. So had my dad. But then...faith just kind of fled. Now...I knew God wasn’t real. I knew He _couldn’t_ be real, because after all, God is supposed to protect people. He’s supposed to save the good people. He should’ve taken me instead of mom. Then, things would be right. I don’t think it was Fate who made my mom die. I think we have some control over our own lives. And because I made the decision not to turn the oven off, she died. That was my fault. Not Fates. Not God’s. Mine, and mine alone. God, thinking about this made my head hurt worse than it already did. I climbed slowly upstairs. It was only five p.m. I laid down in bed, fully clothed, not having the energy to change. I pulled the blankets up to my chin and curled up.  
I was out like I’d never been awake.

     *

I woke up to the blaring of my alarm. I groaned, blindly reaching out and slapping it until it turned off. It took a solid half hour to get out of bed after that, which is why I had an alarm set to go off a half hour later than my first alarm. I always went back to sleep. I dragged my feet on my way to the bathroom, taking as much time as possible. I didn’t want to be late, that would draw attention to me. I just didn’t want to go. Hell, I didn’t want to face the day in general. Then again...it was more or less like this every day. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t dread it just as much as I did each and every other day I went through it.  
The shower felt so friggin’ good on my aching body. I stayed in there a bit too long, and didn’t have time for breakfast. Dad wouldn’t let me drive the car, so I had to walk the two miles to school every morning. It was freezing. I bundled up in my ratty black jacket and slung my bag over my shoulders, stopping at the gas station that was ten minutes from my house to grab a Styrofoam cup of coffee. It felt damn good on my frozen fingers.  

I made it to school just as the first bell rang. I hurried to my locker, my fingers trembling with cold as I fumbled to do my locker combination. It took two tries, but I finally had it. I kept my coat on because god dammit I was pretty sure I was getting a cold. I shoved my bag in my locker and gathered my books, heading to calculus. I dreaded the class, mostly because Mr. Hendricks teaches and he’s like one thousand years old and his voice is so monotone I don’t even know how he shows emotion. I usually sleep in the back, because everyone knows he’s blind as a bat and can’t _see_ past the first two rows and doesn’t bother _teaching_ anyone who isn’t in the first two rows. I sink down in my chair and pillow my head on my arms, falling asleep in minutes.

     *

I woke up to the bell. I slept through the entire class period. That’s new. Usually I only sleep half, maybe less. At least I missed all of Mr. Hendricks lesson for the day. I didn’t even know what we were doing in that class anymore.  
I gathered my stuff and walked as slowly as possible to Latin, my books hugged to my chest, hunching my shoulders so I wasn’t any bigger of a nuisance than necessary.

“Hello, Mr. Winchester,” Mrs. Malloy said as I walked into class just as the last bell was ringing.

“Hello, ma’am,” I mumbled, walking quickly to my seat. Her gaze followed me; I could feel it boring into my back.

“Would you like to translate this sentence into Latin?” she asked, pointing to the board. I squinted at it, cheeks heating.

“No thank you, ma’am,” I replied, sitting down. Everyone was staring at me. I put my head in my arms. Mrs. Malloy was quiet before continuing to talk, asking some other poor kid to translate the sentence on the board.

“Hey, are you alright?” a voice asked next to me. I hesitated before pulling my head from my arms and looking over. A new boy I hadn’t ever seen before was sitting next to me. Usually I was the only one who sat in the very back of the classroom. The last row usually consisted of me, myself and I. The first thing I noticed, among other things, was that this boy’s eyes were shockingly blue. Electric. The kind of blue that you only read about in books. His eyes made me itch to write in my journal. Something about oceans of blue or galaxies among a bigger galaxy. The next thing I noticed were the scars on his pale wrists. I unconsciously pulled my sleeves lower over my fingers.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” I said quietly, setting my head back down on my arms, dully watching as Mrs. Malloy wrote something on the board as I did my best to appear as though I was actually learning something here.

“You sure?” the boy asked. I sighed.

“I said I was, didn’t I?” I snapped. The boy held up his hands innocently and turned to face the front again, picking at a loose threat on his black long sleeve that didn’t quite reach his wrists...or they didn’t until he tugged them down, just as I had. I turned my attention back to pretending to be intrigued as Mrs. Malloy so interestingly taught us how to say “best friend” in Latin. Yeah, because that was something I honestly needed to know. I desperately wanted to sleep some more- last night had been full of tossing and turning and nightmares. That’s how it was every night, of course, but last night was worse, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. My eyes seemed to slide shut of their own accord, my head dipping until it was resting against my chest...

“ _Mr. Winchester!_ ” Mrs. Malloy snapped from the front of the class. I jerked my head up, blinking owlishly at her. She gave me a disapproving glance- not like I wasn’t used to it- and continued teaching. I sighed, sinking lower in the chair but making sure to stay awake. The boy was looking at me again, eyes narrowed a bit as if I were his lab specimen.  
Blessedly, the bell rang, dismissing class for lunch. I stood slowly, but the boy stood slowly as well. Walking next to each other but not together, we made our way to the door, last to leave. Mrs. Malloy tapped my shoulder.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” she asked, and that made my stomach sink, but I nodded. The boy looked at me for a second too long before walking out of the class room.

“Yes, ma’am?” I said as politely as possible once the door had swung shut.

“I’ve noticed you can’t seem to stay awake in my class, Mr. Winchester. And you never seem to talk to anyone. Castiel was only trying to make a friend. You could’ve been nicer,” she said, studying me through her spectacles. Why was it that all the teachers here were old?  
“Can I give you some advice?”

 _I’d rather you didn’t._ “Of course.”

“Don’t push people away. It won’t help in the long run. Try to make some friends. Don’t seem like you’re so depressed all the time,” she said, smiling. I resisted the urge to say I was depressed all the time and instead nodded, smiled stiffly, and walked out.

God, I hated how teachers played around with the word ‘depression’ like it was a fucking ping pong tournament. They threw it back and forth like they knew what they were talking about, like there were absolutely no depressed kids in the entire school. They didn’t realize they were only touching the tournament’s board- they hadn’t actually touched the net. But then, that’s the point, isn’t it? Pretend depression isn’t actually real; pretend it’s nothing more than a fairy tale.  
Pretend the net isn’t really there.

The boy was leaning against the wall next to the door, watching me closely and then glancing away.

He didn’t say anything, but then, he didn’t need to. He just started walking.

And for some reason, I followed. 


	2. Stars

So I guess I had gotten myself a friend. Sort of. We didn’t talk. We didn’t share sandwiches and we didn’t ask each other to open our milk cartons. We just sat next to each other, leaning against the wall, picking at our lunch. It wasn’t that interesting, but for some reason, just the simple presence of the un-named boy made me not so lonely. After a solid fifteen minutes of nothing, he turned to me.

“So, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Dean.”

“Cool. I’m Castiel.”

“Awesome.”

“You’re a junior?”

“Yes.”

“Seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna answer with more than one syllable?”

“No.”

“You know, this whole friend thing would be a bit easier if you would actually participate in the switching of intelligent conversation,” the boy pointed out. I sighed irritably and threw away the rest of my half eaten sandwich.

“I’m not in the mood, Castiel,” I replied, looking down at him.

“Are you ever in the mood?” He pushed himself to his feet, throwing away the rest of his sandwich, too. He watched me closely again, and I shifted from foot to foot, my hands shoved in the pockets of my sweats.

“Why don’t you go sit with your other friends?” I asked.

“I don’t have other friends, Dean,” he said quietly.

“Oh.”

We sat back down.

When the bell finally rang, we hadn’t talked anymore than we had in Latin. I dragged my feet on my way to English, plopping into my seat in the back corner. Mrs. Cook droned on and on about _The Odyssey_ while I half paid attention. When the bell rang, I was out before anyone could say anything. Last class was creative writing, which was the only class I actually liked, because I could write the entire period and Mr. Black couldn’t get mad at me because we were in a _writing_ class. So I scribbled in my notebook, writing and perfecting three poems before the hour and a half was up. When the bell rang, I hugged the notebook to my chest and made my way to the door.

Today, I’d written poems about the transformation of life to death. It wasn’t as easy as people tended to think it. People didn’t just keel over and die because they felt like it.   
I thought that human lives were like plant lives. We spend our entire lives planted in one single spot, never doing anything interesting. We may move to California or we may visit Europe, but we don’t actually _move_. We sit still and wait for things to happen to us. Eventually, we realize we’ve waited too long because we can feel the impending death, hovering above us like a gray cloud blocking out the sun. But then there are the lives like dandelions. They throw their seeds into the wind and the wind carries them to wherever it is it wants them to go. Those lives, the ones who move through the wind, who _aren’t_ planted in one single spot for the rest of their life, those are the ones that matter.

Which one am I? The plant in one single spot or the dandelion in the wind? The answer was easy. I was the plant. I didn’t do anything interesting. I didn’t do anything fun. I didn’t _move_. Instead, death was hovering above me like a gray cloud.

It was a dark thought, but then, death always was. It took someone who truly understood and accepted the idea of it to make light of it, to turn it into something about plants. It made sense for life. After all, typically plants were used to represent life. It was an easy concept to grasp, the life cycle. Of course, I had to turn it into something dark. Apparently that was all I was good at, turning good things into bad ones. But then, it seemed everyone could do that. Kids at my school always complained about how life sucked. They always groaned about how they hated their parents because they didn’t get the fucking _car_ they wanted- “Oh, but I wanted an _Audi_ , not a _Ferrari_ ”- but in truth they could never understand the feeling of worthlessness.   
Not like I did.   
True, there were kids who _did_ understand it because they were like me- something had happened, whether it was the death of a loved one or a friend or something entirely different. They had to take pills so they didn’t try to off themselves in the middle of school with their plastic cafeteria fork; so they didn’t feel quite as crappy as they always had. The pills took the edge off the crappiness but it didn’t take it away. They never would take it away because when you constantly felt worthless and hated, nothing could make those feelings go away. Not even pills.

When I got out of class, Castiel was standing by the door, trying to dodge rushing people. Part of me wanted to avoid him, but a stronger, more dominant part of me made me go over to him. It was strange. I hadn’t wanted to talk to someone like this in a long time.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey,” he said, smiling, but somehow it wasn’t a real smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, no matter how warm it was. “I wasn’t sure you’d come over here.”

“Honestly, neither was I,” I said, trying to smile and pretend this wasn’t at all new to me.

“So...you wanna hang out sometime?” he asked. I thought hard about that one. Did I really want to? I could be at home. I could be in my room writing. I could be listening to music with my headphones, ignoring the world. Or I could be hanging out with Castiel. Like before, part of me wanted to say no, but a bigger part wanted to say yes.

“How does now sound?” I asked, smiling a small smile that I was sure didn’t reach my eyes, either. Strange, we had the same smile. His lips tipped up.

“Sure. Do you have a car?” he asked. I shook my head and he raised a brow.

“Oh, okay. Uh, we’ll take mine,” he said, before leading me towards the junior parking lot. I followed closely behind, tugging my coat closer around my body, backpack slung over my shoulder. He led me to a Bronco. It was black and kind of beat up, but overall better than my car, seeing as I didn’t even have a car. I crawled in the passenger side, letting my bag drop at my feet, and he started the car. The engine turned a couple of times, and I was worried that I’d somehow broken his car, but then it started up. He turned on the heat, full blast, and I opened my vents, and then let out a string of curses as I realized that cars didn’t usually heat up that fast and closed them, rubbing my hands together to get them warm. Castiel gave me a sheepish smile.

“Sorry. She drives well, but she sure as hell doesn’t want to warm up very fast,” he said before pulling out of the parking lot. We were quiet for a bit, only the roar of the engine as we moved turtle-slow through the crowded parking lot, before Castiel broke the silence. “So, where should we go?” he asked. I thought about that for a moment and then shrugged.

“Coffee sound good?” I said, looking at him with a raised brow. A smile tugged up his lips.

“Sounds awesome. Bet we’ll get there before the car heats up,” he said, chuckling. I smiled a bit and nodded.

Castiel took us to a Starbucks. It was empty inside except for the barista. I headed up to the counter.

“Can I get a regular black coffee?” I asked. The barista- her name tag said ‘Alex’- looked to Castiel.

“What can I get you, hun?” she asked. He shrugged.

“Oh, I’m fine,” he said. I turned to look at him with a raised brow and his cheeks turned a light pink.   
“I don’t have any money,” he mumbled.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, just tell her what you want,” I said. He looked between us for a moment before nodding.

“White Chocolate mocha, same size as his, please,” he said quietly. She nodded and smiled as I handed her a ten. She gave me back my change before bustling to get the drinks. Castiel and I settled down in the comfy leather couch in the very back corner of the shop after we’d grabbed our warm drinks. I wrapped both hands around my cup, inhaling the smell of coffee swirling through the air before I turned to Castiel. He was smiling at me.   
We talked.

     *

We were there for hours, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. It was the most I’d talked to one person in years, the most I’d told someone. It was wonderful and painful at the same time. I was learning about Castiel, learning things I didn’t think he’d told anyone and telling him things Ididn’t think _I’d_ told anyone. But, at the same time, I was telling him things that I was sure he’d hate me for. I was waiting for him to, at some point, go running out of the coffee shop screaming, but he never did. I told him I hated my dad, but I didn’t tell him why. I didn’t much talk about my mom. The only thing he knew was that she’d died in a house fire on the night of my tenth birthday, and that I didn’t eat pie anymore. He told me that his dad killed himself in the attic of their old house when he was thirteen and that he had found his dad there with a bullet in his skull. I’d learned that his birthday was on December twentieth and he’d just be turning seventeen. I told him mine was on January eighteenth and I’d be turning eighteen.

It was dark out when we finally left. He drove me back home, even though I’d insisted in him taking me back to the school since it was closer to his house, which was three and a half miles away from my own. We talked on the way home, too. When we got to my little house, I honestly hated that we didn’t have more time together. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Castiel said as I pulled open the door.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” I said glumly. He raised a brow.

“So? I’ll be here at one. Make sure you’re ready, Dean,” he said, smiling lightly. I felt a smile, a real smile, tip up my own lips.

“See you tomorrow, Castiel,” I said, crawling out of the car and pulling my backpack over my shoulder. Neither of us said ‘goodbye’. We’d talked about that earlier. We’d talked about how the term ‘goodbye’ was just so negative. We’d talked about how it sounded like you would never see that person again, that you would never hear their voice or see their smile. We’d both decided we would never say goodbye to each other because goodbyes were always so hard.

I watched him drive away, and I waved and he waved back. I watched him until he was gone and stayed out there a bit longer, looking up at the stars and watching them because stars were just so beautiful. I thought I saw a new star that I hadn’t ever seen before, shining brilliantly, the same color as Castiel’s eyes. It would make sense.

I had always thought stars were created when two souls crashed together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the second chapter! Hope you like!


	3. Best Friends

When morning came, a note crumpled on the floor in front of my door told me that dad would be gone for the better part of the week and if the house wasn’t spotless by the time he got back on Thursday I would not like the consequences. I assumed I wouldn’t. At 12:37 p.m. I was pulling on a pair of jeans and a black _Pierce The Veil_ long sleeve with a gray scarf. I suppose I could be called gay for it, but really, of all the things I worry about, that is _not_ one of them. And besides, it was damn cold outside. I didn’t plan on freezing today. I tugged on my worn black biker boots- worn from time, mostly, because I wear them every day and have had them for three years, having bought them too big because I knew my dad wouldn’t be buying me any others any time soon. They’ve got steel buckles laddering the sides and they’re heavy duty-real leather- and made for all weather, including Washington weather. With my jeans precariously tucked into my boots, I made my way to the kitchen, pulling on a red beanie as I went. I had, what people typically described, as ‘emo hair’. First off, it wasn’t my fault it was black and second off, it also wasn’t my fault that it was really the only hair cut I could pull off. I stuffed half a granola bar in my mouth, waiting impatiently for my new friend to get here.

At exactly one o’clock, just as I was shoving the rest of my granola bar into my mouth, the door bell rang. I smiled to myself, stuffing my wallet in my pocket before heading over, pulling open the door. Castiel stood there, also wearing a beanie- his was dark blue, and he also had the ‘emo hair’, though his was chocolate brown- and he was wearing a gray _Fall Out Boy_ long sleeve, dark jeans, and black boots that looked just as worn as mine did. But, on the bright side, he wasn’t wearing a scarf, so we didn’t look like two best friends trying to match outfits.   
At least he had good taste in music.

“Nice outfit.” We both said it at the same time. He grinned and I smiled a small, half smile, before I stepped outside, locking the door behind me and putting the key back in the very suspicious and lonely rock right next to the Welcome mat. He led us to his car, and I jumped quickly in the passenger seat. He had the car running still, so it was actually warm. I smiled and turned the vents towards me as he pushed in a _Fall Out Boy_ CD. He kept the music low so we could still talk.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” Castiel said, waving a hand at the heavy gray clouds and the trees bending in the wind. I chuckled.

“Beautiful,” I replied, looking out the window, humming along to ‘Sugar, We’re Goin Down’.

We got to the Starbucks in ten minutes. It was empty again, and this was probably because it was much smaller than most, and on a corner hidden behind a building where it wouldn’t be seen by passing cars. It was nice, actually, not having to worry about other people.

“Same as last time, doll?” Alex asked, looking between us, and we both nodded. I handed her two fives, and she once again gave me my change.

“Thank you, ma’am,’ Castiel said politely to the older woman.

“No problem, sweetie,” she said, smiling. We sat down on the couch again.

“So, if you could be anything, what would you be?” Castiel asked after a beat of silence spent listening to the oldies Elvis station that was on. Luckily, the soft music droned out our conversation so Alex couldn’t hear.

“Poet,” I said without a seconds pause. One side of his mouth tipped up.

“Really?” he asked.

“Really,” I replied. “What about you?”

“Author,” he said, smile widening a bit. One made its way to my own lips, too.

“That’s awesome. Why?” I asked.

“I guess I just like creating the characters, and their back stories and their problems. It makes real world problems seem...not as bad, I guess. And, it kind of, ya know...” he trailed off, as if unsure whether he should continue.

“It takes you out of reality,” I said matter-of-factly. He nodded.

“Yeah. It’s much better to be in a reality that I create than here. But...here isn’t so bad right now.” He smiled a warm smile and sipped his coffee. I nodded. I understood that completely because that was exactly how it was for me. Getting lost in an ecstasy of words was much better than getting lost in an ecstasy of world problems.

This time I told him about the oven, and how I never turned it off. I told him how the fire had been my fault. I’d already accepted this. I already knew that what I had done was irreversible. And the acceptance meant it no longer brought tears to my eyes. He frowned at me but listened patiently, his eyes sad as I continued talking.

After, I’d finished, he’d proceeded to tell me how depressed his father had been, how Castiel had sometimes caught his father with a gun in his hand, and how he’d always shove it away in the nightstand drawer, before Castiel could really debate it. He’d been too young to really understand his father’s mindset, but he told me he understood it now. He understood the feeling of worthlessness, the pain of waking up another day, the breathlessness of a steel blade slicing through his skin. That was something we both understood far too well.

I knew now why I’d been drawn to this boy. It’s because we both had that gray cloud hovering above us. It’s because we both accepted it. It’s because we both accepted imminent death and knew it would come sooner for us than later. It was because we were both dying. Not physically, maybe, but mentally and emotionally. We were falling apart. And, it seems, the dying call to each other.

We stayed until it got dark, but this time, we didn’t just talk. We wrote. We started to write stories.

But we were more than writers; we were creators. And we created worlds together.

When I went home that night, he came too. He’d told his mother he was staying with a friend. And I guess, that’s when it became true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, ya'll. Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!


	4. Tears of a Broken Boy

He was half asleep on the couch when I came downstairs, his pillow smashed against his face. I rolled my eyes, making my way to the kitchen for some much needed coffee. It was only noon. I snorted. Only. I _only_ woke up at 12:00 p.m. I made a pot of coffee and got myself some cereal, waiting for either Castiel to wake up or the coffee to finish brewing. It turned out that Castiel was up first. He came into the kitchen, his hair a big a mess as mine. He smiled lazily and went over to the just finished coffee, pouring both of us a mug. He’d easily made himself at home here. I admired that.   
He sat down next to me, setting my mug down next to my bowl of cereal, and sipped his own.

“So, I was thinking this morning,” I started.

“Uh-oh. That’s never a good thing,” he said with a wink. I rolled my eyes.

“Anyway...it was because of a dream I had last night,” I continued, trying to figure out how to rephrase this. And yes, we were to the ‘sharing dreams’ phase of our friendship. We’d gotten there much quicker than I anticipated. “It was about colors...” I trailed off again, brow furrowing as I figured out how to say this. The truth was, I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d dreamed last night. It had been about colors and fire and blacks and whites and ironically, my dad had been in it. Strange, even when he wasn’t here, he still haunted me. He’d been drunk, of course, and had whipped his belt buckle across my back and I had found the crimson of my blood very intriguing. I remember thinking that colors were strange and that crimson is an expressive color, the color of roses, and that blood and roses shouldn’t be the same color. And then I thought that crimson was the color before roses died, and that it was also the color I bled when I tried to slit my own wrists three years ago. Crimson was the lifeblood of all colors.

“Annnnd?” Castiel prompted, rolling his free hand for emphasis. Finally, I settled on;

“It was about colors.”

“Colors?” he repeated, raising a brow. I nodded my confirmation.

“Colors. I’m not sure why...but I realized something now; colors are practically meaningless.”

“How can colors be _meaningless_? Oh, you’re going to start a rebellion against colors; I can see the headline now. _‘Boy Protests Against the Need of Color’_. Yes, brilliant,” Castiel deadpanned. I rolled my eyes.

“No, no, no. You see, we don’t really _know_ what color is what. We see a different shade of something and give it a different name, when really, colors could all just be different shades of black and white. But we wouldn’t know, because how could we know what black and white really looked like?” I shook my head and sipped my coffee. It was too early for this. Castiel stared at me for a long moment, and then laughed.

“Man, Dean...it’s too early for this...” He took a breath, sipped his coffee, and set his mug down. “I guess, however, you are right about that. But, can you tell me off the top of your head what your name is?”

I nodded.

“Okay, what about how old you are?”

Again, I nodded.

“What kind of car you wish you had?”

I pursed my lips, but nodded.

“Right. So I guess, somehow, we have to have _some_ knowledge of what’s going on otherwise we wouldn’t really be able to understand anything that we are currently going through,” he said.

“But,” I protested. “How do you know we _do_ understand? I don’t understand why my parent’s named me what they named me. I don’t understand _why_ I want a ’68 Chevelle. I just _do_ ,” I said, raising a brow. He nodded, quiet for a moment.

“Well,” he said after a beat of silence. “Your parents liked the name. Bam. They wanted something unique, and what is more unique than _Dean_. Maybe it’s some messed up version of ‘raw fish’, who knows? But obviously there _was_ a reason. I don’t think they picked random letters and put them together. And what is it that you like about Chevelles?”

“I’m not sure. Just the way it looks, I suppose,” I said, slowly understanding where he was going with this.

“So that means you _do_ understand. I think you’re looking at this more philosophically than you need to. You’re asking _how_ instead of _why_ , _why_ instead of _why not_? Contrary to popular beliefs, there is a reason for everything we do,” he pointed out. I blew out a breath and nodded.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I mumbled. He smiled smugly. God, that was the most intimate discussion I’d had about one of my dreams. It was a bitter relief. Castiel finished off his coffee and stood.

“You got a bathroom, D?” he asked. I blinked rapidly. No one had called me that for seven years. Slowly, I nodded.

“First door on the left,” I replied. He nodded and headed off into the bathroom. A moment later, I heard the water running. As soon as I heard that, I dropped the façade, shoulder’s slumping. _D_. That’s what he’d called me. I let out a long, slow breath.

I ran trembling fingers through my hair. I hadn’t slept well last night, either, getting twenty minutes here and there, maybe an hour if I was lucky. I didn’t know why it was happening now, but I could feel myself falling apart at the seams, no matter how well I was able to hide it. After all, I’d been hiding it for seven years. But it was getting harder and harder to do so. I took a long pull of my coffee, my fingers aching for a pen even though I had nothing to write.   
I guess that wasn’t entirely true. I knew something I could always write. I had my father’s gun and a pen and paper in my room. I could write my suicide note. But then, that wouldn’t really be fair to Castiel, would it? Ah, fuck it. I’d been trying to make other people happy for far too long. That’s all I’d done because, really, if I couldn’t be happy, if I didn’t _deserve_ it, other people did, right? Other people weren’t as messed up as I was.   
And, for the first time in seven years, I thought about how unfair this all was. Why _me_? That was the question I always wanted to know, wasn’t it? _Why_? This time, it was different. This time...God, I didn’t even know. I didn’t deserve this, did I? Did I do something to piss off the big guy upstairs?   
Rage poured through me and I hadn’t ever wanted to hit anything as bad as I did right then. I didn’t think about it. I put my fist to the wall, three, four, five times, feeling my knuckles bruise and swell, the skin crack and bleed and I relished in it, relished in the destruction I was causing, in the pain. So I did it again, and again, until I heard a crack and felt fiery pain course up my arm. Then, and only then was I able to stop. I sank down the wall, pulling in a deep, deep breath, fighting back tears. I would not cry. I would not. As I took the stairs two at a time, I felt everything I’d worked so hard to build come crashing down. I saw the fire reflecting in the windows, the flashing lights of the too-late firemen, my father selling Marvin to an animal shelter, my father’s belt coming crashing onto my back, his harsh words of “ _It’s your fault your mother’s dead! Why didn’t you save her?!_ ” rang through my mind, “your fault” echoing in an endless loop. _Why didn’t you save her, Dean? Why?_

I found my blade and slashed at my wrists mercilessly. Crimson poured down my arms and to the floor in rivulets. My eyes caught a picture of my mother on my nightstand and I couldn’t be in that house anymore. I bolted down the stairs, running outside in nothing but sweats and a tee-shirt, blood running freely from the wounds in my arms, and I ran. No one would see me, no one was out to see me. It was raining too heavily for anyone to be out. I barely felt rocks dig into my bare feet, didn’t feel the freezing rain as it pelted my body, didn’t hear the panting of my own labored breaths.   
I did feel the tears running down my cheeks in rivulets, feel heaving sobs shaking my body, and I collapsed in the middle of the empty road in sobs. I turned my wrath on God, screamed at Him.

“ _WHY ME?!_ ”

It was a broken question for a broken boy.

I cried some more, feeling weakness take over my body as I lost blood. I didn’t care. I wanted to die. I’d wanted to die for seven years. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t scream at God for what he’d taken. How could I blame God when I didn’t believe he was there? Easy. I needed to put the blame somewhere, and since mom had believed in Him, it was so, so easy.   
I screamed wordlessly again, letting out all the pain and anger and tears I’d been harboring since I was ten.   
It was then that I heard a yell of my name from a too familiar voice.

“ _D!!!_ ” It sounded so worried. I looked blearily around, swearing I’d heard my mother’s voice. She sounded so scared. Huh, everything was getting black. My vision fuzzed around the edged and the ground rushed up. I wasn’t sure how my cheek ended up pressed to the ground, little rocks digging into it. My eye’s fluttered and sweet, sweet oblivion took hold and dragged me into a pain free darkness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know his breakdown is kind of sudden. But, then I suppose they usually are. If you're wondering, it's because of the whole 'D' nickname thing. Only Dean's mother ever called him that, so it's a bit of a touchy subject

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, guy's. Typically, I'll do destiel, but this time it's only IMPLIED. It can be there if that's how you want to read it, but you could also see them as just friends. Whichever you want. Hope you like! And this chapter is kind of long, but I promise, most won't be quite as long as this!


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